Whedon On "SHIELD," "Capt. America" Crossover

The most recent episode of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." dealt with the fallout of the events seen in "Thor: The Dark World". Reviews for that episode weren't kind, the actual crossover elements adding up to not much more than a few minutes of screen time.

This has led to the hope that the eventual crossover episode with Marvel's next film "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" in April will be more substantial. Of the upcoming 'Winter Soldier' film, SHIELD's executive producer Jed Whedon tells TV Guide:

"Nick Fury [Samuel L. Jackson] is in that one, and S.H.I.E.L.D. makes an appearance, so we will definitely try to tee-up some stuff and probably play a little bit of the fallout from that film. We're hoping to do some cool stuff."

The "Thor" crossover episode was only the first part in what's hoped to be a greater expansion of the Marvel world onscreen:

"We're trying to flesh out the world. The Marvel brand carries with it a lot of familiar faces. We're trying to flesh out the world of S.H.I.E.L.D. with the established characters and the characters we're introducing to build out the larger organization that we operate in. That's where some of the fun can be had."

Whedon also spoke about Coulson's return from the dead and it sounds like fans have yet to work out the solution:

"We know that there's going to be a lot of theories and there's no chance that whatever we reveal won't, at some point, be written on the internet. We're just trying to come up with ways to make it surprising or make it not how they expected it to unravel. We know what it is, but we know that no one else does yet."